College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences
Nestled beside the Bart Garrison Agricultural Museum of South Carolina, located in
Pendleton and amongst clucking chickens, is a garden containing crops native to South Carolina. It is here that students from the Designing a Kitchen Garden of the Future Based on the Past Creative Inquiry team meet on a weekly basis to maintain and develop the garden.
There’s a small space in Clemson’s Experimental Forest where a few tall trees tower towards the sky. Covered in long pine needles, the wooded area is open and bright compared to the rest of the forest. A Creative Inquiry team, led by Dr. G. Geoff Wang and Dr. Arvind Bhuta in the School of Agricultural, Forest, and Environmental Sciences, is studying three species of southern-yellow or heart pines (Pinus taeda, Pinus palustris and Pinus elliotti).
These pines are of interest because of the unusual occurrence they have in this region; these longleaf pines (Pinus palustris) are outside of their natural range, which ends sixty miles south of Clemson in southern McCormick and Greenwood Counties, South Carolina. According to historical records, the plot being studied was planted in the 1940s as a source of labor in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Wang, professor of silviculture and ecology, says that there is quite a history of these trees in the South as far back as the 1930s.
“At that time, people didn’t actually study a lot about it,” Wang said. “It was more like, ‘Hey! We got seedlings here! Go plant them!’ It could be they had excessive labor, and they just had seedlings and went planting everywhere.”
One significant characteristic of longleaf pines is that they depend on fire. Without periodic burning, the plant cannot naturally regenerate. Natural and human-caused fire used to occur frequently, but human efforts to suppress fire and the overharvesting of longleaf pine forests in the southeast have caused populations to decline.
Junior forest research management major Carson Barefoot is concerned about this change. “It’s weird because longleaf pines used to be really dominant. They were the most abundant species but then, we stopped putting fire on the ground, and then they started declining,” he said. “And now, we’ve reintroduced fire. And that’s what we’re trying to see—how the reintroduction of fire is impacting these trees.”
Bhuta describes the magnitude of the decline of this species: “Due to the overharvesting of longleaf pine forest and the practice of preventing fires, the longleaf pine declined, going from over 91 million acres to only over 2.7 million acres,” he said.
The team is also studying how climate affects the growth of loblolly, longleaf and slash pines in different regions of South Carolina. They are starting by studying young longleaf seedlings.
Students measure the height and diameter of the tree, and the canopy. Students also “core,” or retrieve samples from the inside of the trees. Using a core sample, the team can identify the age of the tree and how both climate and disturbance have affected its growth. They can also recognize scars from burning.
“We just want to have some simple metrics to calculate how many trees per acre are here and go from there to kind of give us an estimate of what’s going on with the life history of the tree,” Bhuta said.
This Creative Inquiry engages forestry students in meaningful research in Clemson’s Experimental Forest.
“It’s real world stuff that we would do in a job. So, we get to practice. I like to see how the environment impacts the growth directly in the rings,” junior resource management major Michael Griffo said.
Barefoot enjoys the outdoors aspect and research rewards of this project.
”I want to keep doing research,” he said. “I want to keep coming out here and helping the trees other than exploiting them for their resources. I absolutely enjoy it.”
Say you’re walking down the grocery store aisle and spot a nice, see-through package that reads “ORGANIC.” Just like that, you’re hooked. Do you actually know what organic foods are, or are you convinced because of the nature of the package? This mystery is what packaging and food scientists alike work every day to figure out. What drives a consumer to purchase a product? Is it the taste? Is it because its healthy?
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Here at Clemson University, Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Sciences are three separate degree programs that are housed within the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences. Students in these majors take classes in one of the three fields and rarely cross; however, in the food industry, they may be as close as sharing an office wall. Nutrition professors Dr. Marge Condrasky; food science professor, Dr. Aubrey Coffee; and packaging science professor, Dr. Duncan Darby, advised this Creative Inquiry project.
This two-semester Creative Inquiry project was assisted by graduate student Alexandra Weeks, who took many different approaches for students to have a well rounded view of all steps used in the product development process.
The group started the research project by learning an introduction to each field aiming to learn the basics of product development. This particular product development project was meant to create healthy foods that would be attractive to children and marketable to their parents. Students began the first semester with lectures that covered each of the majors and what they specifically study. From there, they took an in-depth look at how industry professionals operate when developing a new product and completed ideation activities that started putting informative knowledge into practice. These ideation (thought) activities increased gradually with complexity and made each student— no matter their education background— think like another, forcing them to ask each other questions that they may not have otherwise thought to consider.
Throughout the course sequence, students were exposed to a number of experiences that both enhanced current study efforts and promoted long-term professional development. Students learned how to process more than 300+ ideas and find the best ideas that can be used for a product launch. They were also taught how a few perfected ideas are transformed from ideation through each of the stages of product development.
A trip to Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen after learning how industry professionals approach situations solidified concepts taught in previous lectures. While visiting their Atlanta, Georgia facility, students were also able to attend a networking event with members of the Research Chefs Association—members who could potentially be future employers. At the Denny’s headquarters in Spartanburg, South Carolina, students were introduced to a different style of product development being that Denny’s is not considered a quick service restaurant.
After learning how to formulate ideas, perfect them, and develop them from an industry professional’s perspective, students were able to put their skills to the test. Members of the Creative Inquiry project spilt into groups and each developed products that could be used as healthy alternatives to poor eating habits practiced by elementary school children. The products ranged from included healthy versions of waffles to healthy cookies. Each group had a main focus of either packaging components or food development, while striving to make a snack as nutritious as possible.
Once completed, members of the Creative Inquiry partnered with a local school, Chastain Road Elementary, to run a sensory panel to test their new creations. After a failed attempt, students went back to the drawing board to perfect their designs and prepare them for a presentation with invited Clemson media, faculty members, and industry professionals from previously visited sites.
The beauty of this Creative Inquiry is that students were exposed to critical thinking skills, conditioning make them work as industry professionals in a team. This unique opportunity for professional development, and an expansion of their classroom is only a small luxury of Creative Inquiry. Students walked away with skills that are not only beneficial for future study, but skills that are attractive for professionals seeking to hire. This wonderful collaboration has proved to be an excellent opportunity and will be continued to engage students, creating new capacities for success.
So the next time you see that same see-through organic package, not only should you let your mind wonder on the what makes it or the product unique, but think of the dedicated individuals that worked hard to test and perfect something so delicious and healthy.
There are only 3,200 wild tigers left in the world. The enormity of this problem has not gone unnoticed by Clemson students. In 1997, Clemson students founded Tigers for Tigers, a student initiative to support tiger conservation around the world. As Tigers for Tigers president Sean Carnell explains, “There are over fifty schools out there with tiger mascots. Here at Clemson, we know how much pride these mascots make us feel for our school. So we decided to work with other schools to extend the pride from the football field to help real tigers in the wild.”
Initially, Tigers for Tigers aimed to create a national coalition and host the first national summit to promote collegiate awareness about the situation. The student group was able to gain the support of President Barker, who sent letters to other tiger mascot schools to enlist support for the cause. Collaborating with the 57 other tiger mascot universities was not an easy task. Tigers for Tigers advisor, Dr. David Tonkyn, and a group of dedicated students formed a Creative Inquiry team. After two years of hard work, the team made the dream of a national coalition become a reality, as the National Tigers for Tigers Coalition was formed. This united effort allows students across the country to work together through social media, advocacy programs and involvement abroad to help protect tigers. In April 2013, the team hosted a National Tigers for Tigers Summit. The purpose of the Summit was to establish a foundation for the national organization, develop a strategic plan for students helping tigers and promote student awareness of the issues associated with tiger conservation.
The 2013 conference was an enormous success. Featured speakers included Dr. Ron Tilson, a world premiere tiger biologist, Dr. John Fitzgerald, the senior policy director for the Society for Conservation Biology, representatives from the International Fund for Animal Welfare and many others. While sparking awareness and admiration in students interested in tiger conservation, visiting tiger experts also helped the Creative Inquiry team establish Tigers for Tigers as a national organization. Carnell explains, “we built wonderful connections with our partners. Especially at the conference, we worked with wonderful people who knew exactly what needed to happen to make a change. They showed us how national policies are developed. It was way more exciting than reading a textbook.”
Beyond the conference, Tigers for Tigers is working to improve its social media outreach program through developing a Facebook page and filming viral videos to spread awareness. And the Creative Inquiry group aims to promote the Big Cats and Public Safety Protection Act, a federal bill banning the private ownership of big cats in the United States. Also, for the past nine years, Tonkyn and former Director of International Student Services Louis Bregger have offered an opportunity for students to visit India to see tigers in the wild and learn about their conservation. Such opportunities are important for the success of the coalition, Carnell notes, because “that’s where all the motivation started for us. We went to India, saw tigers in the wild, and came back excited to help.” The incredibly diverse number of projects Tigers for Tigers encompasses makes this Creative Inquiry project applicable to students with all sorts of interests including finance, marketing and biological sciences.
As Tigers for Tigers continues to grow and develop, the group hopes to expand on a national level. But as 11 schools are now united across the country, working tirelessly to help real tigers around the world, Tigers for Tigers has successfully made solid steps to saving Clemson’s beloved mascot: the Bengal tiger.
Coffee and cancer aren’t often mentioned in the same sentence, but in Dr. Feng Chen’s laboratory, both are topics of much debate. On Dr. Chen’s Creative Inquiry team, students from the Department of Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Science get lab experience in a variety of food-related subjects, from analyzing the flavor of coffee to evaluating the clinical potential of certain fruit extracts. Students probe questions like, “When and why does coffee go bad?” and “Why are blueberries considered so healthy?”
Nutraceuticals, the development of a food towards medical purposes such as disease prevention, is just one of the many fields investigated by this Creative Inquiry group. The team originally started researching a set of compounds found in cottonseed oil called polyphenols. Through extraction and analysis, these polyphenols were discovered to contain a plethora of medical applications. These compounds are anti- almost anything you can imagine: antioxidant, anticancer, antiparasitic, and the list goes on. Although many of their properties are still being analyzed, these polyphenolic chemicals show good potential for future drugs.
With success using cotton, the Southern cash crop, the group started to wonder if other harvested goods held similar health-promoting properties. The team turned to blueberries and Southern-grown muscadine grapes. They were shown to have similar, but distinct polyphenols from cottonseed oil.
In these natural delectables, the students are investigating a particular subset of polyphenols called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are part of what gives plants their red, blue, and purple colors. These chemicals are proving to be just as promising as the polyphenols found in cottonseed oil – research shows that they can fight conditions like diabetes.
Because Dr. Chen’s lab contains all the complex equipment needed to extract chemicals, his Creative Inquiry team has been able to step into new territories – the flavors of various foods. Currently, the team is investigating two of America’s favorite goodies: chocolate and coffee. Instead of using the standard method of taste testing and subjective judgment, the students are approaching these guilty pleasures in a different manner: a purely analytical one. They are using flavor chemistry, or the chemical analysis of foods for natural and artificial flavor development and enhancement, to change how we think about these refreshments. Students looked at how the chemical composition of coffee changes from 30 to 60 minutes after brewing to determine what causes coffee to go bad, giving it that universally disdained burnt taste.
Dr. Chen boasts that his lab has some of the best opportunities at Clemson University to practice proper lab technique. “Results are good, but we really encourage students to learn critical thinking but also to gain an independent capability for research and to discover how to write scientific papers.” Students are able to work with state-of-the-art instruments, such as a high-performance liquid chromatography machine and a UV-visible spectrophotometer, something that a normal undergraduate would never have the opportunity to interact with. No matter what subject the members are researching, they always take away valuable research experience.